With work on the new provincial budget now underway, the recent provincial financial update points to a need to “get Alberta’s fiscal house in order," says Jason Nixon, area MLA and minister of Environment and Parks.
In his Q1 financial report released last week, Minister of Finance Travis Toews said there is a need for spending restraint in order to balance Alberta’s books.
For his part, Nixon says, “The reality is we inherited a very large deficit from the NDP and the province is on track for $100 billion in debt. We are working to get Alberta’s fiscal house in order while still maintaining and protecting the services that Albertans deserve.”
The budget will start to be debated in the legislature in late October.
“Each department is working on their budget,” he said. “It is in the early stages. We are going through and evaluating all of our programs and working with treasury board.”
Asked if he foresees any public service sector wage rollbacks in the new budget, he said, “I think the best person to ask that is the finance minister. I’m not part of wage negotiations.”
Asked if he foresees any cuts to services in the new budget, he said, “Our goal has always been stated and the finance minister has been clear to try to maintain the services needed, like health care and education.
“We are also entering a period of fiscal restraint and we will be working to get our fiscal house in order, and bringing our province back to balance by the end of this term as we promised Albertans.”
In his Q1 fiscal report released last week, Minister Toews said, “Compared to Q1 last year, we are now paying an additional $93 million on debt servicing instead of on programs and services for Albertans. Burdened with cost pressures and compounding debt left by previous governments, we have to find ways to exercise restraint.”
Asked if he sees a provincial sales tax as a solution to the province’s current financial woes, MLA Nixon said, “No. Alberta spends more than any other province per capita and we need to focus on how taxpayers’ money is being spent and not on taking more taxes.”
The NDP official Opposition was not impressed by the financial update.
“It’s hardly a fiscal update at all,” NDP MLA David Eggen reportedly said. “It fails to provide essential economic information about projections into the future and quite frankly it looks more like a flimsy excuse for making cuts here in the fall.
“We lost 14,000 jobs in July under this government and the minister can’t tell us when -- or even if -- his risky experiment will get a single one of those jobs back. This corporate tax cut is an epic failure.
“This fiscal update shows that we are in a tenuous position but certainly the path to balance that our government set out is there. It is not a dire circumstance that would require cutting nurses, teachers and essential services.”
Meanwhile, MLA Nixon says the recent proclamation of the federal Bill C-69 is “terrible news and a direct attack on Alberta’s economy.”
“It’s a no more pipeline law. Bill C-69 could have devastating impacts on our energy industry,” he said. “The reality is it was done to directly hurt Alberta and is another reason we need to replace Justin Trudeau as prime minister in a couple months.”
The federal government says Bill C-69 will protect the environment by improving the assessment process for industrial projects.
The Kenney UCP says it will challenge the legislation in court.
Asked if he’d like to see Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer become prime minister following this fall’s federal election, Nixon said, “Yes I would. We need to put somebody into office that is able to stand up for our energy industry. What we have right now is a direct attack on Alberta’s economy.”
